Nick Hughes on entrepreneurship

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Hang In There

I tend to get a bit emotional when I find myself looking back over my almost 2 years of full time, full contact entrepreneurship.

Why?

Well, it’s been such a crazy ride. It’s been up. It’s been down. I’ve been in. I’ve been out. I quit my last full-time job over 2 years ago with basically nothing to jump to but my own gut instinct, which told me – akin to Field of Dreams – “if you jump, they will find you.”

I jumped. And they found me.

It was incredible to jump into my company full-time, but in reality it hasn’t been all roses. Mostly I’ve hung in there and “weathered the storm” as they say, until brighter days came.

It was then I realized what this entrepreneurial journey is all about – hanging in there. I was reminded of this recently as I was chatting with GeekWire founder John Cook. He mentioned it as I asked him about some of the lessons he has learned over the last few years building GeekWire.

What I think John is saying is you need to be patient enough to give yourself the opportunity to encounter success. It doesn’t happen overnight. It sometimes doesn’t happen over a year. Fortunately (or unfortunately) some people must wait many, many years before the seeds they have planted actually grow into something they can reap benefits from.

But you just have to hang in there.

John is a perfect example of this in action. He spent about 10 years working for an old traditional newspaper, the Seattle PI. At the time, he was covering tech and could see what was about to happen (or happening) to the newspaper industry due to the growth of the web.

In fact, he and his friend Todd actually came up with an entire plan, shared it with the PI and suggested they go another direction, embracing the web as opposed to fighting it. John and Todd told the PI they would run it. Those executives didn’t listen the John and Todd, which at the time I am sure was frustrating to the both of them.

Yet, today…. GeekWire is an up and coming digital media resource, has a great presence in Seattle and beyond, and is growing strong. The Seattle PI? They shut their doors on their physical paper a few years ago and are struggling to stay relevant in this new digital world.